Sports to Celebrate

Bengals, Reds put us on the map

What an amazing start to 2012 for Cincinnati on
the sports front: first, Bengals playoff mania swept the city. There
were orange and black jerseys everywhere. That excitement immediately
gave way to former Reds great Barry Larkin's induction into the Hall of
Fame and another big Reds trade.

The excitement had multitudes of casual and
non-sports fans bantering back and forth on Twitter, Facebook and in
offices everywhere. It was civic pride, writ large.

If there is anything to be learned from this
phenomenon, it's that we should never take our pro sports teams for
granted. Many do every day. But they should always think of the
meta-picture. The civic pride and economic impact that both create,
frankly make our little city walk and talk bigger than it is, which is a
very good thing. Perhaps we can't compete with the big boys
economically, but we surely can beat the Chicago Cubs, New York Mets and
Miami Dolphins.

What It Brings

It's no coincidence that both team owners "” Mike
Brown with the Bengals and Bob Castellini with the Reds "” are near the
top of our annual Power 100 list of the area's most influential people.

Imagine life without one or both of the teams.

Does the Banks get created?

What about Newport and Covington's booming
development "” does that occur to the degree that it has happened and is
still happening?

Does the economic impact for ancillary companies, products and services remain the same?

Does the "next big thing" to the riverfront come to fruition?

The very likely answer to all four is "no."

Big City Stuff

And in the status department, little ol' Cincinnati would be a whole lot littler, literally and figuratively.

Among the cities with at least two pro teams
competing in the big four leagues "” Major League Baseball, National
Football League, National Basketball Association and National Hockey
League "” Cincinnati is the 22nd smallest out of 30.

Greater Cincinnati is the 27th-ranked Metropolitan
Statistical Area in the nation as designated by the 2010 U.S. Census
with 2,130,151 people. (For the record, Cleveland is 28th and Columbus
is 32nd. We're just sayin'.)

The Seattle and San Diego metro areas have a million
more people than Greater Cincinnati, but the same number of Big Four
pro teams. Portland, Sacramento, San Antonio and Orlando "” cities
slightly bigger than Cincinnati "” have only one team.

Life with our sports teams is far from perfect and
has its warts (see: stadium deals, extended periods of losing). And
they're just games, of course, leisure pursuits.

But at the end of the day, we are far better off with our teams than without them.

Yes, we are pretty lucky here in the Queen City. We should never forget that.

And there are more big things on the horizon.

Next Up: Spring Training

After an offseason of blockbuster trades and
signings, the "all-in" Reds are going for it big time, beginning their
quest for the National League Central title with spring training in
February. Reds Nation is veritably giddy with good reason heading into a
season for the first time in more than a decade.

And the Bengals will steam into the NFL Draft in
April in prime position to make a young, promising team even stronger
with two first-round draft picks. Even the often-skeptical Bengals
faithful are daring to dream.

Odds are you're already talking about both and we know that will just build.